Weak leadership seems to be the case in several EU member countries. Putting the decision of whether or not to accept EU financial bailouts and accompanying austerity conditions to a vote by a citizenry collecting pensions/benefits equal to their prior working income seems, to say the least, regressive. I seriously doubt the 60% majority of tax-avoiding Greeks in favor of rejecting EU bailouts actually understand what a sovereign default would mean to those gold-plated gravy trains.

France does. Still no response from China to French pleas of financial assistance.

Will Greece take the smart way out or will emotional ignorance push it into insolvency?

__________________"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people."
~H.L. Mencken~

Weak leadership seems to be the case in several EU member countries. Putting the decision of whether or not to accept EU financial bailouts and accompanying austerity conditions to a vote by a citizenry collecting pensions/benefits equal to their prior working income seems, to say the least, regressive. I seriously doubt the 60% majority of tax-avoiding Greeks in favor of rejecting EU bailouts actually understand what a sovereign default would mean to those gold-plated gravy trains.

France does. Still no response from China to French pleas of financial assistance.

Will Greece take the smart way out or will emotional ignorance push it into insolvency?

I think the 'smart way out' is highly debatable.

Having Greeks suffering for the sins (and paying the bills) of European bankers isn't going solve any European banking problems. Indeed, that's just the worst of 'moral hazzard' writ large. That just encourages the banksters to double down on the same (profitable) game.

As for default, Argentina took a decade of punishment from the IMF and World Bank and only recovered after they successfully shook them off with a full sovereign default.

So I'd say that the 'smart way out' isn't always the obvious one. Different situations call for different responses, but in this particular case, the Greeks have little to lose and much to gain with a sovereign default. It is the bankers and politicians of France/Brussels that will suffer the most from a Greek default.

I can't compare Argentina and Greece. Argentina had (and has) a distinct two-tiered social structure with an elite controlling vast poverty. Greece is classic (no pun intended) socialism that ran out of money and subsequently debt facilitation to support that idealism.

I've looked at Greek natural and exportable product resources and they pale in comparison with those in Argentina. Regardless of which direction Greece takes, the citizenry is in for a rough ride for far more than a decade.

__________________"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people."
~H.L. Mencken~

Actually, I think some populations are waking up to the fact that they are completely responsible for the crimes of corporate sociopaths - and they apparently don't like it.

Populations get the governments and indirectly business structures the majority voted for, nothing more, nothing less. Not a peep when economic times are good. When times get tough it inevitably becomes a blame game, with blame focused anywhere but on the whining populace itself.

__________________"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people."
~H.L. Mencken~